Regional
Rebuilding a Higher Education System Begins with One University
Quality standards within the Russian higher education system have been in freefall since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Between 2006 and 2007, the nation’s flagship university, Moscow State [1], dropped from 93rd to 231st in the Times Higher Education’s ranking of world universities [2], raising many eyebrows. Now, a new research institution, created to raise the country’s academic reputation within a decade, is struggling to find its feet.
The Southern Federal University [3] was established in 2006 through the merger of four regional universities: Rostov State University, Taganrog State University of Radio Engineering, the Rostov Architecture & Art Academy, and Rostov Pedagogical University. It has 50,000 students in 206 disciplines across 36 schools. The university is one of two originally planned by then-president Vladimir Putin who hoped to revitalize the system through a series of mergers. The government’s goal was to restructure university teaching and research to bring it in line with Russia’s economic needs.
The problem for SFU is that the campuses it has inherited are in a state of disrepair, which means much of the US$220 million funding it received in 2007 and 2008 has been spent on refurbishments, with little left for developing research. According to the rector, Vladislav Zakharevich, in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, the mind-set among professors seems disconnected from the world around them, averse to new ideas, and wanting only to focus on basic research.
The rector has been particularly focused on finding corporate partners for his researchers to team up with. In 2008, he signed 80 agreements with small and medium-size companies, and established two research centers in conjunction with local businesses to better align student training with work-force needs. The current shining light at the institution is the Center for Nanotechnologies, in which students and professors study materials on a molecular scale. The campus has already seen results from the rector’s push to engage the university more deeply with industry: This year it is working with several other higher-education institutions to produce robotic surgical tools, which will net the institute about $270,000.
However, other campuses and schools remain in a state of disrepair and poorly equipped, with little federal funding to go around. When not wrestling with the budget, the rector spends much of his time working on academic improvements. The government has promised that this year all federal universities will be given the freedom to revamp their curricula as they see fit. Historically, the Ministry of Education [4] has controlled the curriculum at all Russian universities.
Mr. Zakharevich is also working to develop more international ties for the university. On paper, Southern Federal has exchange programs [5] with 431 foreign universities in 52 countries, including 80 universities in the United States. But few have been active, until recently.
In February the university signed an agreement with the California State University [6] system to conduct exchange programs and joint research projects. And for the past two years, students in Russia have worked alongside students at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis [7] on a research project called Global Health Care Dialogue, in which they study different countries’ health-care systems. The rector has also sent more than 400 scholars to visit Western universities in the last two years, in hopes they would adapt some of the curricula and teaching methods they learned about abroad.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [8]
April 10, 2009
Nationalist Critic of West Appointed to Top Job at Moscow State
Moscow State University [1] recently appointed a Russian nationalist as the head of its new Center for the Study of Conservatism; a controversial move in academic circles.
Aleksandr Dugin, who was made a professor of the university’s sociology faculty last September, has called for the restoration of the Russian Empire. Professor Dugin, reputed to be close to Vladimir Putin, the prime minister and former president, wrote in 1997: “In principle, Eurasia and our space, the heartland Russia, remain the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution.
“The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the US and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us.”
– The Times Higher Education Supplement [9]
April 16, 2009
Student Loan Scheme Introduced
Russian university students, just like their peers around the world, are struggling to pay tuition fees under the strains of the global economic downturn. In response, the government has announced plans to support loan programs, although one state-supported initiative, ‘Credo,’ dissolved recently after the bank through which funds were channeled went bankrupt. According to Education Minister Andrei Fursenko, students needing financial help will continue to get support.
“We have introduced some innovations,” He told business daily Kommersant. “Credits will be offered at the current bank lending rate but the state will subsidize by three-quarters the current 13 percent interest rate of the Russian Federation Central Bank. The maximum rate a student taking out a loan will have to pay is 11.5 percent.”
The state will guarantee every loan, according to the minister, and students will not be required to back the loans with equity or assets, nor will they require a guarantor.
Fursenko estimated that 10,000 students across Russia were currently eligible to take up such loans: “By our calculations, the size of the state support for educational credits in 2009 should be around 750 million rubles (US$22 million).”
– University World News [10]
April 26, 2009